Israeli authorities on Friday rescinded 250,000 Israel entry permits from Palestinians hours after a deadly attack in Jerusalem left four dead and several injured, a spokesperson for the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) told Mondoweiss.

Three Palestinians were shot dead after killing an Israeli police officer and injuring several others in an attack outside of the Damascus Gate on Friday evening. Following the attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior members of his cabinet, as well as top security officials met in a conference call and decided that Israeli authorities would be instructed to rescind all weekday holiday permits from Palestinians to enter Israel.

The COGAT spokesperson said that permits granted to Palestinians for Friday visits to Al Aqsa mosque were not included in the 250,000 permits that were canceled.

Aida Touma-Suleiman, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and member of the Knesset’s Joint List, told Mondoweiss that she considered the revocations a form of “collective punishment” and said she planned to introduce a suggestion to have a “special discussion on the issue.” However, it will be up to the presidency of the Knesset to authorize the movement.

“This is an obvious form of collective punishment, it is not acceptable — all those who are using these permits to meet with their families and to be with them during Ramadan are doing so during the month, because most of the year they are not able to do so,” Touma-Suleiman said. “To enact a punishment against all the Palestinian people for something that was done by individuals is exactly the definition of collective punishment and is not acceptable.”

According to Rosenfeld, 350 Palestinians were arrested before sundown on Saturday alone.

In addition, Israeli forces closed off Deir Abu-Mash’al, the Ramallah-area village where the three Palestinians who carried out Friday’s attack were from. The nearly 4,000 residents of the village are barred from entering or leaving the village until further notice from Israeli authorities.

Israeli authorities also revoked the permits of family members of the three Palestinians who committed the attack, including long term work permits. Family members also reported that they feared Israeli authorities might attempt to demolish their homes in retribution, a policy often carried out after attacks.

While the Islamic State took credit for the attack, the group’s statement misidentified the three, though it is possible the group used IS aliases when identifying the attacker as their own. However, Hamas condemned IS’s claim, stating that the three Palestinians were operatives of Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian, both of which groups also took credit for the attack.

United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, condemned the attack, which he called a “terrorist act” that must be “clearly condemned.” Mladenov made no mention of the hundreds of thousands of permits rescinded or the thousands of people in Deir Abu-Mash’al on lockdown.

In 2016 Israeli authorities rescinded the permits of 83,000 Palestinians during Ramadan after four Israelis were killed and 16 wounded in a Tel Aviv shooting spree carried out by two Palestinians from the West Bank. The move last year was decried by rights groups as a form of collective punishment.

About Sheren Khalel

Sheren Khalel is a freelance multimedia journalist who works out of Israel, Palestine and Jordan. She focuses on human rights, women's issues and the Palestine/Israel conflict. Khalel formerly worked for Ma'an News Agency in Bethlehem, and is currently based in Ramallah and Jerusalem. You can follow her on Twitter at @Sherenk.

“Is this it? Will this be the pretext/beginning of pretext? 2008-09 – Cast Lead; 2012 – Pillar of Defense; 2014 – Protective Edge; 2017 – [Insert Orwellian Name of Operation]?”

I think the problem they have is not so much in finding an impressive name for the next Gaza “operation ” so much as not having any significant infrastructure left to blow to smithereens with their high tech US funded and supplied weapons. Remember psychologically Israeli Zionists need these”shock and awe” images to reassure themselves that unlike in the 1930`s and 1940`s they are a force to be reckoned with – though not necessarily a boots on the ground force (perish the thought). More of a high altitude remote distance remote controlled force. They think that it is a great spectacle for themselves and their children to watch. Rather like a Halloween fireworks display here in the UK with picnics etc. And as for the Yahoo and his Fascist cabinet it is a no brainer when it comes to winning votes As for the Palestinians in Gaza including innocent men women children and infants in as much as they give them any thought at all it would be along the lines of “they started it” and/or “it happens in war”.https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/15/world/middleeast/israelis-watch-bombs-drop-on-gaza-from-front-row-seats.html?_r=0
Remember that these Zios live in a parallel universe and reality where they never ever commit any crimes of any kind and are always always the victims.

Oh and as per the famous words of the revolting Golda Meir:
“We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”

ARAFATBASTARD- “The Israelis watching the bombs dropping on Gaza, were residents of Sderot, which had been receiving Palestinian missile attacks on a daily basis for years, until that point.”

According to Michel Warschawski, Sderot is just a talking point to justify current policy. Not long ago, no Israeli gave two shits about Sderot, something of a backwater. I suspect that few Ashkenazi would be caught dead in Sderot. Want to stop the rockets? Lift the illegal siege of Gaza as agreed to in every cease fire agreement. From 2008 (and it has only gotten worse):

“The justification provided by Oz (in Corriera de la Serra) and Yehoshua (in La Stampa) is, of course, the need to react to the rockets fired on Sderot, as if everything started with these rockets. “I had to explain to the Italians”, said Yehoshua to Haaretz (December 30, 2008) “why the Israeli action was necessary”.
Both Yehoshua and Oz have forgotten the nineteen months of Israel’s brutal siege imposed on one and a half million human beings, depriving them of even the most basic supplies. They have forgotten the Israeli and international boycott of the democratically elected Palestinian government. They have forgotten the forced separation of Gaza and the West Bank, a separation made in order to isolate and punish the Gaza population for its incorrect democratic choice.
After having chosen to re-write the chronology of events, Oz and Yehoshua are using the symmetry argument: violence is used by both sides and there are innocent civilian victims in both Gaza and in Israel. Indeed, and every civilian killed is an innocent victim. Chronology and quantity, however, are not irrelevant: three Israeli civilians were killed in the south of Israel, but only after the Israeli Air Force committed its planned massacre in the center of Gaza city, killing over 300.” (Michael Warschawski) http://links.org.au/node/828

Hostilities between Hamas and Israel are a consequence of Israel’s illegal occupation of the Gaza Strip and its oppression of the native inhabitants.

To wit:
As the respected human rights organization Human Rights Watch declared in 2005: “…Israel will continue to be an Occupying Power [of the Gaza Strip] under international law and bound by the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention because it will retain effective control over the territory and over crucial aspects of civilian life. Israel will not be withdrawing and handing power over to a sovereign authority – indeed, the word ‘withdrawal’ does not appear in the [2005 disengagement] document at all… The IDF will retain control over Gaza’s borders, coastline, and airspace, and will reserve the right to enter Gaza at will. According to the Hague Regulations, ‘A territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised’. International jurisprudence has clarified that the mere repositioning of troops is not sufficient to relieve an occupier of its responsibilities if it retains its overall authority and the ability to reassert direct control at will.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross: “The whole of Gaza’s civilian population is being punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility. The closure therefore constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, ratified by Israel, bans collective punishment of a civilian population.”

“In practice, Gaza has become a huge, let me be blunt, concentration camp for right now 1,800,000 people” – Amira Hass, 2015, correspondent for Haaretz, speaking at the Forum for Scholars and Publics at Duke University.

“‘The significance of the [then proposed] disengagement plan [implemented in 2005] is the freezing of the peace process,’ Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s senior adviser Dov Weisglass has told Ha’aretz. ‘And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda….’ Weisglass, who was one of the initiators of the disengagement plan, was speaking in an interview with Ha’aretz for the Friday Magazine. ‘The disengagement is actually formaldehyde,’ he said. ‘It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.’” (Top PM Aide: Gaza Plan Aims to Freeze the Peace Process, Ha’aretz, October 6, 2004)

What is the name of the Palestinian village Sderot build upon? When and how did Israel acquire its territory which happens to be outside the borders in which it declared statehood? And how many Nonjews did Israel expell from or prevent to return to this place?

Arafatbastard: “… which had been receiving Palestinian missile attacks on a daily basis for years, until that point.”

LOL “, on a daily base”. You are such a liar. But alone in 2006 Israel shot more than 14000 artillery shells into Gaza which killed more citizens than Palestinian rockets have until now. Do you call Israel’s behaviour terrorism, too? Or “war crmes”? Maybe crimes against humanity given its half century long occupation which means violence against EVERY civilian?

How about the truth? Netanyahu did not revoke permission for West Bank males over 40 to enter Jerusalem for Ramadan prayers.
Whilst terrorism and violence occurs, spurred on by the incitement of Palestinian political and religious leaders compounded on social media sites that glorify violence and encourage attacks, Israel is totally justified in undertaking whatever security measures it sees fit. Especially after Fatah had the gall to call the killing of the Palestinian attackers a “war crime”. Such despicable endorsement of terrorism by Fatah deserves to be punished.

Perhaps the following will help explain why those pesky dispossessed, illegally/brutally occupied Palestinians won’t roll over and accept their fate.

Film ‘Stone Cold Justice’ on Israel’s torture of Palestinian children

A film produced by a group of Australian journalists has sparked an international outcry against Israel after it explicitly detailed Tel Aviv’s use of torture against Palestinian children.

The film, titled ‘Stone Cold Justice’ documents how Palestinian children, who have been arrested and detained by Israeli forces, are subjected to physical abuse, torture and forced into false confessions and pushed into gathering intelligence on Palestinian activists. Australia’s foreign minister Julie Bishop has spoken out against Israeli’s use of torture stating that “I am deeply concerned by allegations of the mistreatment of Palestinian children,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor has described the human rights abuses documented in the film as “intolerable”. But rights groups have slammed this statement, saying that the Israelis are doing nothing to change Tel Aviv’s policy to torture Palestinian children.

Last year a report by the United Nations International Emergency Children’s Fund or UNICEF concluded that Palestinian children are often targeted in night arrests and raids of their homes, threatened with death and subjected to physical violence, solitary confinement and sexual assault. The film Stone Cold Justice has sparked an international outcry about Israel’s treatment of children in Israeli jails. However, rights groups have criticized Tel Aviv for not doing anything to create a policy that protects Palestinian children against arbitrary arrest and torture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uDPeeD_RPk
Precarious Childhood: Arrests of Jerusalemite Children
This film addresses the process of arrest, interrogation, and the policy of house arrest and their effects on children. The film provides accounts of children who were arrested in order to highlight a larger policy of persecution and targeting of Palestinian children in Jerusalem.

‘Australia’s foreign minister Julie Bishop has spoken out against Israeli’s use of torture stating that “I am deeply concerned by allegations of the mistreatment of Palestinian children,” ‘

She’s concerned about stopping the allegations, not the mistreatment. Mad Eye Bishop sucks up to Israel every chance she gets. When that nice Mr Rudd was protesting about Mossad’s misuse of Australian passports, she took Israel’s side.

Okay: Israel is an oppressive, colonialist, (war) criminal and religion-supremacist “Jewish State” which for almost 70 years has been…
– stealing, occupying and colonizing non-Israeli territory (incl. the Free City of Jerusalem);
– oppressing, torturing and killing Palestinians;
– refusing to honour its obligations under international law (incl. RoR); and
– refusing to accept any responsibility or accountability for the (war) crimes it has committed and continues to commit deliberately and with impunity.

|| Mayhem: … terrorism and violence occurs, spurred on by the incitement of [Jewish Zionist] political and religious leaders compounded on social media sites that glorify violence and encourage attacks … ||

A tidy summary of the on-going “Jewish State” supremacism and colonialism project.

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